Here is the digital version of the paper I presented:

ETHICS IS THE DRIVER, MOSAIC IS THE VEHICLE,

AND NETWORK INSTRUCTION IS THE PRECIOUS CARGO.

Marsha Woodbury and John Schmitz

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

The College of Agriculture at the University of Illinois had an
ambitious goal:  train 500 incoming freshman students how to take
advantage of their computer network privileges without placing
undue demands on their time.  Because the College already had
outstanding computer facilities and expertise, the Department of
Academic Programs chose AIM lab to handle the task.  AIM stands for
Agriculture Instructional Media, and the staff, led by John Schmitz,
searched for the most helpful message, meaning, and means to deliver
the project.  John and I created and developed the computer tutorial,
and because both of us are enthused about "the Net" and being good
citizens in the cyber community, we built ethics into our design from
the earliest stages.  You can examine our team's product on the Web at:
http://gopher.ag.uiuc.edu/WWW/AIM/
Discovery/Net/intro.html.

        To give a brief overview of our message to the students, and the
University community which will also share in our work, here is the
wording from the opening Mosaic screen, a clear statement of the goals
of our project:

* We believe that access to the Internet is a privilege.

* You need a basic knowledge of the "rules of the road" in order to
be a good citizen of the Internet community.

* You should be required to earn a driver's license to use the
Information Superhighway.










RATIONALE

        Up until now, all entering freshman students at the Urbana-
Champaign campus have been issued an e-mail account automatically.
They have been handed pieces of paper with passwords and sign-ons
and have been left to experiment on their own.  They usually do
everything in a hit-or-miss fashion, without realizing the potential
usefulness of the Information Highway or the pitfalls and problems
that accompany their "riding" it without knowing the "rules."  In fact,
last year one of the University's students was arrested for sending an e-
mail death-treat to President Clinton, so student abuse of the Net can
be extremely serious.

        In the Fall of 1993, we co-taught a group of 18 students in a
brand-new multimedia lab and learned from working with them how
little they knew about computers.  We realized that any tutorial we
devised would have be very basic, and that we would have to use
simple language and keep the our goals quite modest.  We did not
want to frighten students; rather, we hoped to build their confidence
and curiosity and excitement.  There could be a wondrous bounty of
information at their fingertips if only they could learn how harvest it.

CROSS-PLATFORM DELIVERY:  MOSAIC

        We faced a grave limitation for creating the Discovery tutorial
for 500 students-a lack of work stations.  Agriculture provides its
students with access to an impressive Micro Computer Center, but
even that at full-strength, it could not accommodate the numbers we
were dealing with.  Some of the machines are Macintosh, and some are
PCs.  Fortunately for us, Mosaic appeared, developed right here at the
University.  Mosaic is a global hypermedia tool for accessing Network
resources.

        Mosaic answered many of our needs.  It worked on all our
machines, and allowed our tutorial to be reached from all over the
campus as well.  Our students could go to any lab and bring it up.
Mosaic imports text, sound, and graphics, giving us multimedia
capacity.  Its live links would let us direct the students right to the
resources they might need.  In short, Mosaic answered our prayers.

        With Mosaic, instructors can provide a custom multimedia
database to their students.  Initially a professor or teaching assistant
could load and
organize resources, and later students can perhaps help as well.
Examples of resources which we can add to our module are glossaries,
idea banks, scientific visualizations,  resource lists, abstracts, short
Quicktime movies, and so on.  A user-friendly "active database map"
will allow students easily to click on and open selected resources.

ETHICS

        The idea of a Driver's License Test for the Internet did not
originate with our lab.  The Network community has tossed the
concept around for years.  What we were able to do, however, is
incorporate the metaphor into our tutorial and make it a mandatory
assignment for the freshman students.  In order to pass the basic
Agriculture introductory course, AG/HRFS 100, they had to do two
assignments from the Discovery tutorial.  This "test" gave them more
incentive to work their way through the netiquette sections.

        Ethics on the Internet can involve:
                * Unwanted romantic e-mail
                * Business uses
                * Chain letters
                * Flaming
                * Threats

        We tried to cover all these and more.  For the first assignment,
the students had to send a properly formatted e-mail message.  We
stressed to them basic rules of sending e-mail, such as what to put in
the subject line and how to identify themselves clearly.  The last point
becomes of paramount importance when you consider that almost 500
students would be sending in e-mail messages.

        For help with the Driver's License, we turned to the Internet
community and our own campus computer gurus and asked their
advice for basic and helpful knowledge which the students should
have.  Here are some excerpts from their (unedited) e-mail replies:

        "The most important requisite for an internet driver's license is
courtesy and etiquette. The internet is a loose anarchy, and like all
other anarchies, it won't function well unless its citizens demonstrate
mutual respect and tolerance for others and their opinions. The rapid
expansion of access, especially pay-for-access, worries many old
nethacks because of the potential disregard and disrespect for others.
This can be observed in the current disdain for 'Delphinoids.'"  (Ed
Nater, Soil Science Department, Associate Professor, University of
Minnesota, 21 Mar 1994)

        "Things students should know/learn about the net: (1) how to
emote (2) depth and breadth of discussion list topics, that is, how to
find the full listing of discussion lists (3) commands for joining and
unsubscribing for discussion lists (4) how to reply and forward e-mail
(5) how to create a signature (6) a little bit about the commercial online
services that tap into the net (7) what the extensions mean, e.g. edu,
com, gov (8) contact information for a help source, e.g. at our school it's
the academic computing department staff--some one's always willing
and able to help students/faculty/staff (9) one net reference book (10)
one net periodical they would like to follow regularly." (Elizabeth King,
Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock, 27 Mar 1994)

        As has been our experience, the Internet quickly contributed
valuable ideas which we attempted to incorporate.  We kept in mind
that some of our 18-year-old students came from communities and
schools that gave them no background in Network communication,
and the highly technical items would possibly overwhelm them.  One
thing the students did know extremely well, naturally, was the concept
of earning a Driver's License.

        Hyperlinks pointed the students to the sections on Ethics at
every opportunity.  Sources for the Netiquette materials included:
"When you're in someone else's house..." by the Computer Ethics
Institute; "Zen and the Art of the Internet'" by Brendan P. Kehoe; "The
Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet," by Ed Krol; and "Big Dummy's
Guide to the Internet," by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

        Moreover, we included an entire "page" on  "Riding on the
Information Highway-Tips for the Critical Traveler"  We urged  the
students to  be a critical travelers of the information highway:

        Do not believe everything you see
        or read on the Net!
In plain words, some items may be
        * Not true (altered photos)
        * Not accurate (articles not carefully researched) or           even
        * Dead wrong.
Think as you explore. This is no different than being a critical reader of
text or a critical viewer of all graphics in
        * books
        * newspapers
        * magazines, not to mention
        * TV (Remember when NBC faked news coverage of a truck
exploding into flames on impact?)
Ask yourself:  What is the credibility of the information I find?
                * Who put it up there?
                * What is their mission?
                * What is their reputation?
                * Do they have a potential conflict of interest?
                * Are there careful reasons given for their
                claims?
Remember: Anybody  can put Anything  on the Net!

DRIVER'S LICENSE TEST FOR THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY

At the time of this paper, we have proposed a simple test which is still
evolving but gives an idea of what we hope the students will learn.

        The test:     AG/HRFS 100       Fall, 1994

Answer the following ten questions.

You will get    pts. for each satisfactory answer.

1.  What  is  "flaming?"

2.  How do you log-off  your e-mail account?  How do you quit an
application?

3.  What and where is Prairienet? [our local Freenet]
How do you sign onto it?

4.  What does each part of this address stand for?  ux4 .cso.uiuc.edu

5.  What are three rights and responsibilities of your sign-on?

6. List three ways that  e-mail is different from a letter and three ways it
is the same.

7.  What is a network interest group?  Give an example.

8.  List three common mistakes made by a novice sending e-mail.

9.  List seven CCSO sites and three others that are open to the whole
campus community.

10.  Define "computer network" and "on-line."

CASE STUDIES

        Once we have the Freshman Discovery Tutorial completed, we
will move into step two, the Issues Module, which will be ready before
Fall 1995.        Students will use the Issues Module to further explore
what they learned their first year. The design metaphor for the module
is "Issues as Complex Landscape" and "Students as Landscape
Explorer," a metaphor which will be realized in the system graphics.
        For example, students will be able to click over mini-cases that
are arranged on actual landscapes in order to "telescope" into related
text, picture and audio.  Module design is informed by recent research
on the use of hypertext environments to facilitate transfer of
knowledge to real-world situations, and weighing up the ethical
implications of decisions.

        We will assemble a bank of case studies-from internal and
external sources-so that instructors can conveniently acquire them
and plug them into their courses.   The case bank will include on-line
cases, an increasingly popular method of delivery that helps cases come
to life.

SUMMARY

        We both strongly believe that no instruction about computing
software should be given without an ethical component.  Nowhere is
this more important than in the use of the Network.  Ethics should be
integral to all curriculum planning, of course, but particularly when
you are launching thousands of new students into cyberspace.  We
attempted to use the excitement of Mosaic, of color and linking, of
instantly connecting half-way around the world, to hold the students'
interest while we presented the "rules of the road."  We created a
program we see as a first draft, needing polishing and editing and pilot
testing.  In six months we will be able to assess its effectiveness.






Marsha Woodbury      U of IL, U-C      "A simile is like a metaphor."
FAX  217-356-7050         (H) 217-337-0001        (W) 217-244-3390
mwoodbury@cpsr.org                CPSR-GLOBAL Moderator
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